


All Three of Us

by cookie_full_of_arsenic



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: Blood Drinking, Canon divergence - Tulip doesn't die, Demisexual Tulip O'Hare, Demisexuality, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Figuring shit out, Getting Together, M/M, OT3, Pining, Polyamory, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2019-08-11 16:36:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 33
Words: 19,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16479110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookie_full_of_arsenic/pseuds/cookie_full_of_arsenic
Summary: Basically, everyone has a buttload of feelings and no idea what to do with them. The endgame is happy polyamory for the unholy trinity, but getting there will be a long and bumpy road.





	1. 1976

**Author's Note:**

> So, a lot of these chapters will read like one-shots but they are all interconnected and all leading towards OT3 happy-times. I'll aim to update regularly.

Cassidy had loved a lot of different people in a lot of different ways, and he had lost a fair few of them to death. An awful business, it was. Watching people wither like cut flowers. Watching them lose the ability to eat proper food, to use a toilet, to recognise him. That sick, helpless feeling was something he never got used to.

More often, though, the people he loved simply outgrew him. It happened over and over and over. Friends settled down and got married or got sober. Lovers wanted a stability that he couldn’t give him. They moved on, and maybe she should’ve been happy for them, but he wasn’t.

It was 1976 when he met Peg and Harry. Cassidy was at a party – not his usual scene, but one of those surprisingly wild suburban things. Peg was a redhead, and Harry was a tall drink of water, and as they beckoned him over to the couch that they were sprawled across, he noticed something unusual in their body language. Something open and inviting in a way that wasn’t friendly or polite. It was something else entirely.

When Peg first put her hand on his thigh and squeezed, the look on Harry’s face made his stomach flip like a pancake. This was new. New things were few and far between, and that made them difficult to resist.

One crazy night turned into a dirty weekend, which somehow turned into a seven-month relationship. Peg was an intoxicating woman. She was creative and passionate and had somehow managed to live a fascinating life, without ever living or travelling anywhere remotely interesting. It was her attitude, Cassidy supposed. She was determined not to be boring, regardless of how dull her surroundings were. Sexually speaking, she was up for all kinds of kinky shite. Sometimes it scared Cassidy a little, and the fact that this petite little lass could scare him made him feel more alive than he’d felt in decades.

Harry was a kind, gentle soul with a mischievous streak and a passion for spy novels. He was also the first bisexual Cassidy had ever met. Rather embarrassingly, Cassidy didn’t realise this at first – he assumed Harry was just a kinky bloke who liked to watch his wife fuck other people. But then, on their third night together, Harry went to his knees in front of Cassidy and sucked him off in a way that made it obvious he had prior experience, and plenty of it. Cassidy had never been with a man before – at least, not in any way that counted – but Harry was an excellent teacher and Cassidy found himself to be an enthusiastic student.

The relationship was ended, abruptly, by a pregnancy scare. It turned out to be nothing more than a late period and a stomach bug, but that was enough. When they told Cassidy it was over, Harry couldn’t even look him in the eye. Peg took his hand, tried to be comforting, and failed miserably. “Please don’t be upset, honey,” she said. “We all knew this arrangement wasn’t permanent.” The word “arrangement” left a bitter taste in Cassidy’s mouth.

He dealt with the break-up by going out and getting properly, miserably shitfaced. The following afternoon, when he’d got over the worst of the hangover, he came to a decision. From now on, he was going to keep his relationships simple. He would prize simplicity above everything else. He would pay for it if necessary. He would protect his soft old heart from any daft entanglements that threatened to break it.


	2. Mine

Jesse loved Tulip long before he knew anything about love. Hell, he loved Tulip long before he knew anything about anything. At ten years old, it was a purely platonic love, since he wasn’t really interested in girls yet. Maybe he was beginning to develop a casual curiosity about titties, but it was as difficult to imagine Tulip with titties as it was to imagine her in a frilly, pink dress.

They played, and they rassled, and they got in and out of trouble together, and they loved each other ‘til the end of the world. They both played with other kids. Sometimes Jesse wanted to be in charge of a game, and nobody could be in charge of Tulip, so he had to look elsewhere. And Tulip, as much of a tomboy as she was, sometimes wanted to hang out with other girls. It was fine. Best friends didn’t have to own each other.

But then he lost her. And then Angelville stripped everything away from him so that by the time he escaped, he felt like nothing more than a skeleton.

When Tulip reappeared, all grown up and hot enough to take his breath away, he decided he wasn’t letting her go a second time. He needed something for himself. He needed something to hold on to, or he’d drift away like dust on the wind. The first time he kissed her, he felt that kind of need inside her, too.

So he got a Tulip tattooed on his shoulder, and he punched out any sleazebag who hit on her. She was his. She was his reason for living, and no motherfucker was going to steal her away from him.

 


	3. The Bed

Tulip fell asleep with her head and heart full of Jesse. If she’d had her way, other parts would have been full of him too, but that wasn’t an option with Cassidy squashed into the bed beside them.

She woke up in the small hours, to the sound of Cassidy snoring like a chainsaw. Something was different. The bed was no longer crowded, though when she reached out and felt the empty space between her and Cassidy, the sheet was still warm. She wasn’t surprised. Jesse had always been a bad sleeper, and he often got up in the middle of the night to go outside for a smoke.

Still half-asleep, she nudged Cassidy roughly in an attempt to shut him up. He made a sharp snorting noise, and rolled towards her without waking. He did, however, stop snoring. Tulip smiled, maybe a little smugly, and looked at him. He looked younger when he was asleep, and a hundred times more vulnerable. And maybe just a tiny bit beautiful. For one, crazy moment, she wanted to kiss him.

She rolled on to her back, away from Cassidy, and told herself that she really needed to get laid. Beside her, Cassidy squirmed a little in the warmth left over from Jesse’s body, and made a quiet, contented noise.


	4. Resist

Tulip, Cassidy had come to realise very quickly, was irresistible. Sometimes, when he was feeling particularly masochistic, he liked to torture himself by making a list of the times when she had been especially irresistible. For example:-

  * The first time she kissed him. God, but they were the softest lips he’d ever felt. Almost worth a big shard of glass in the neck and a trouserless taxi ride to the hospital.
  * When she found out he was a vampire, and accepted it just like that. No drama, no chasing him around with a crucifix and a clove of garlic. She asked a few daft questions, and that was that. Acceptance was not an easy thing to find, and Cassidy cherished it.
  * When they shagged. He quickly stopped thinking of it as “making love”, because she told him it wasn’t, and because he should’ve known better anyway. But that didn’t stop Cassidy replaying it in his mind. Those firm, far-too-brief kisses. The determined thrust of her hips. Maybe her heart hadn’t been in it, but her body was undeniable magic.
  * When she ate. Cassidy always found a girl with an appetite sexy. Was that a vampire thing? He suspected it might be.
  * When she smiled. Tulip’s smile was rare, and often dangerous, and dazzling, and contagious.



As irresistible as Tulip was, Cassidy had to resist her. She was his best mate’s girl, for fuck’s sake. And though it might seem, to the casual observer, that Cassidy was a man with poor impulse control, this was not the case. He knew how to keep a lid on his appetites, and a bloody good thing that was, too.


	5. Roleplay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the bit from season 2 (I can't remember which episode) where they scam a bar-full of people and Tulip and Cassidy have a smooch.

It was just acting. All three of them were just playing their roles for a fun little grift to get some free booze. Jesse was playing someone he might’ve become, had things gone differently. Tulip was playing a cartoon version of herself. Cassidy was playing a human, and Tulip’s boyfriend.

The kiss could’ve been a peck on the cheek, but Tulip didn’t do things by half, and that clearly went double for cartoon-Tulip. Jesse watched them, and the feeling it gave him was only half-familiar.

All kinds of men hit on Tulip, and they hit on her in a bunch of different ways. Nervous guys puffing themselves up like bullfrogs, pretending to be suave and confident. Sleazy creeps pretending to be sweet and shy. Fucking comedians, trying to make her laugh. And the morons who actually went so far as to put their hands on her waist or her lower back or, God help them, her butt. So many different ways of doing the same, dumbass, predictable thing. The way it made Jesse feel was always the same – anger, pure and simple. He and Tulip belonged to each other, and no other man had the right to lay his greasy hands on her.

This time, as Tulip and Cassidy kissed, the feeling it gave Jesse was neither pure, nor simple. This wasn’t some drunken stranger, this was his best friend. Even though Cassidy was probably enjoying it way too much, Jesse found that the desire to punch him was strangely absent. That didn’t mean he wasn’t angry – hell, his blood was boiling – it was just a different kind of angry. Then there was the _location_ of the feeling. Usually, anger sat in his stomach, tight as a clenched fist. Was he imagining it, or did this feeling spread just a little lower?

Once the charade was over, and with a few free drinks in him, he decided that he needed to get Tulip back to Denis’ place ASAP. The walk home was clumsy and stumbling, and interrupted a couple times by the need to push Tulip up against a wall and kiss her.

By the time they got to bed, Tulip was thoroughly riled up. Jesse teased her mercilessly, fingers in all the right places, refusing to give her what she wanted.

“Jesseeeeee,” she whined, rubbing up against him like a cat in heat. “Please.”

Jesse took hold of both her hands and held them either side of her head, so she couldn’t try any of her tricks. Then he looked her right in the eye and said “Tell me you’re mine.”

As the words rolled off his tongue, they left a faint aftertaste of fear. Maybe Tulip sensed it, somehow, because her gaze softened and she said “I’m yours,” in a voice so earnest, it sounded almost desperate. He released her hands and she pulled him down onto her, into her, and the fear disappeared.


	6. Imagine

Tulip stood under the shower, eyes closed, hand between her thighs. She didn’t do this often these days – Jesse was perfectly capable of keeping her satisfied – but there was something that needed to happen, in the safety of her own imagination.

If she just got it out of her system, she would probably stop thinking about it. She sure as hell hoped so, because those thoughts had started to pop up when she was fucking Jesse, and Jesus Christ, what if she got distracted and called out Cassidy’s name?

She tried to remember every detail of that sordid little encounter in the back of her car. The heat of his mouth, those bony fingers on her skin, how he felt inside her. It was no good. She’d been in a bad place, and blocked everything out until she was practically numb. It was what she needed at the time – or _thought_ she needed, at least – but now, dammit, she had nothing to work with.

Instead, she tried thinking about yesterday afternoon, when they were playing video games together. When Cassidy had finally beaten her at Rock It 5, he’d gone a little crazy with excitement, pulling his tee-shirt up over his face and running around the room, arms outstretched like airplane wings. It had been so sweetly, stupidly childlike, and his body was so sweetly, stupidly _un_ childlike. All sinew and swirling tattoos, and since his face was covered he couldn’t see her drinking in the sight like a woman dying of thirst.

What if she’d done what she wanted to do and grabbed him by the waist as he ran past her? What if she’d pulled him down onto the couch and kissed every inch of that pale, gorgeously decorated skin? What if he’d decided to even the score by stripping her clothes off, or not even bothering to take them off but just sliding his hands down her top and up her skirt instead because neither of them could wait any longer and…

There. That worked.

Tulip leant against the cool tile of the shower wall and waited for her breathing to slow down. She would feel guilty in a minute or so. But just now, she couldn’t feel anything but good.

 


	7. Dream

Cassidy was flat on his back, pinned to the bed, and Tulip was kissing him hungrily. Through the haze of lust, there was the vague knowledge that Jesse was going to literally kill him. Or at least badly mutilate him.

Tulip pulled away, and when Cassidy looked up at her, she was Jesse. Jesse had electric blue hair with little sparks of lightning darting through it, but it was definitely him. He smiled, and rocked his hips a little, making Cassidy gasp.

“Is Tulip okay with this?” Cassidy asked.

“Why don’t you ask her?”

Cassidy followed Jesse’s gaze, to where Tulip was sitting in a corner of the room. She was nestled in a huge, black, Bond villain-style swivel chair, and had a fluffy white cat on her lap.

“Don’t stop on my account,” she said, stroking the cat absent-mindedly.

“See? It’s all good,” said Jesse.

He leaned down to give Cassidy a slow, dirty kiss, and Cassidy woke like Sleeping Beauty. Assuming Sleeping Beauty woke up with a raging hard-on.

He blinked furiously, trying to regain his mental faculties. Okay. So he was dreaming about both of them now. He wasn’t too bothered about it. Really, it was surprising that it hadn’t happened before. Jesse was a good-looking bloke, and they’d spent so much time together, and maybe there were moments when Cassidy detected a certain kind of tension, or spark between them. Or maybe not. Maybe he was just trying to distract himself from the inescapable fact that he was in love with his best friend’s girl.

 


	8. Fancy Cuban Dicks

Cassidy had a philosophy of celebrating life’s small victories. Jesse didn’t share this philosophy – celebrations so often felt like pointless distractions from the task at hand. Still, finding a missing God was an undeniably big task. Perhaps it wasn’t such a dumb idea to celebrate the discovery of a woman in California who had apparently met God in the form of a chipmunk while she was out hiking, and chipmunk-God had cured her asthma. It was also an excuse to drink a lot of booze and smoke the Cuban cigars that Cassidy had somehow procured.

Jesse had invited Tulip to join them, of course, but she only muttered something about wanting a long walk, and disappeared into the night. It wasn’t the first time – Tulip needed her space – but Jesse was beginning to wonder if she was avoiding Cassidy. Maybe he’d pissed her off somehow. He would ask her, when she got back, but in the meantime it was nice to hang out with Cass. Just the two of them, drinking and smoking and talking shit. They hadn’t really done that since Annville.

Jesse held the expensive smoke in his mouth, savouring it, then exhaled gently.

“It’s good shite, no?” said Cassidy, with a slightly lopsided grin. He’d already had a lot to drink.

Jesse nodded, gazing at the cigar between his fingers like the work of art it was. “Cigars always make me feel fancy,” he admitted.

“Really? They always me feel like I’m suckin’ a dick. A fancy, Cuban dick, mind. But still a dick.”

Jesse snickered, feeling his face heat up. Cassidy said stuff like that sometimes. He made jokes about hooking up with men – especially Ryan Reynolds, he had a hell of a man-crush on Ryan Reynolds – or wolf-whistled at construction workers, or even flirted with Jesse. He was obviously into women, but Jesse couldn’t help but wonder if he’d experimented at all, during his many decades of experience.

He could’ve just asked, of course. But he wouldn’t. He told himself that this was because it wasn’t right, or polite, to pry into Cassidy’s sexual past. He wasn’t ready to admit to himself that he was afraid of what it might contain, and of how he might react to it. If Cassidy _had_ been with men, and had enjoyed it, and maybe wanted to do it again… Jesus.

Cassidy drank like a fish, and Jesse didn’t even attempt to keep up. He drank slowly and smoked slowly and found himself watching Cassidy’s throat as he swallowed. That Adam’s apple, bobbing up and down, was distracting. So distracting that he didn’t realise how wasted Cassidy was until the man started to pass out.

“Cass, we gotta get you to bed,” he insisted, shaking Cassidy’s shoulder gently to rouse him from his half-conscious state.

“Mm?”

“Bed, Cass.”

“Mmmmmmmm.”

Jesse slung Cassidy’s arm over his shoulder and guided the drunken mess to his bedroom. His gangly body was unwieldy, and Jesse stumbled more than once as Cassidy slumped against him. Finally, he reached Cassidy’s room and dumped him on the bed, then left to fetch a glass of water and some ibuprofen, which he would sure as hell be needing in the morning. When Jesse returned, Cassidy was sitting up and blinking rapidly, as if attempting to clear his head. He fixed his bleary gaze on Jesse.

“Padre, I’d never hurt you. Not on purpose. I want you to be happy, I really do.”

Jesse placed the water and the painkillers on Cassidy’s beside table, unsure of how to respond. “Well, good. I want you to be happy too.”

Quick as a flash, despite the alcohol, Cassidy reached out and wrapped his arms around Jesse, hugging him tight. Mechanically at first, and then not so mechanically, Jesse returned the embrace. Something was definitely up with Cassidy, but fuck, this felt good. Jesse’s heart beat too quickly, and the hug lasted too long.

When they pulled apart, Jesse mumbled a hasty “G’night, Cass,” and slunk off to his own room. He felt heavy, as if he were carrying a guilty secret. He wasn’t sure whose guilty secret it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stuff is actually going to start happening soon, I promise.


	9. Stoned

Tulip tried just about everything to get over her stupid crush on Cassidy. She tried avoiding him, but he was a difficult man to avoid. She tried ignoring him, but he was a difficult man to ignore. She tried not thinking about it (a speciality of hers) but that didn’t fucking work. Time passed. Christmas came and went, and then Tulip broke her new year’s resolution – to stop fantasizing about Cassidy – within a day. The three of them moved into a shabby, two bedroom apartment, and the first signs of Spring appeared, and Tulip was still thinking about him.

The strange thing was, her feelings for Jesse didn’t diminish in the slightest. She still wanted him all the damn time. Still loved him so much that it sometimes caught her by surprise and made it difficult to breathe for a moment. When she imagined Cassidy lying beside her in bed, it was never as a replacement for Jesse. No, Jesse was there too, in her mind. They were all together and everyone was okay with it, because there was so much love between the three of them that it didn’t leave much room for jealousy or any other bullshit.

She knew, vaguely, that some people had that kind of thing going on. Twenty-something hipsters, living in Portland. Maybe, at her core, Tulip wasn’t so different. Maybe she didn’t care what a relationship was supposed to look like. Maybe she was sick to death of following everyone else’s stupid, arbitrary rules. But how the hell was she supposed to explain any of that to a preacher’s boy from West Texas?

The tipping point happened on a Saturday afternoon. Jesse was out, and Tulip and Cassidy were stoned. They were lying on the living room floor, passing the joint back and forth and listening to country music. Dangerous territory, maybe. But hey, they lived together. Everything was dangerous territory.

“I would have so much phone sex with Johnny Cash,” Cassidy announced.

“He’s dead.”

“Oh. Damn.”

“Don’t be upset. I doubt he would’ve had phone sex with you anyway.”

“You underestimate my powers of persuasion, love.”

Tulip smiled with every part of her face. She couldn’t help it. Must’ve been the pot.

The joint didn’t last much longer, but neither of them wanted to get up. So they stayed there, staring at the ceiling and saying nothing. Until Cassidy, damn him, said, “Tulip, are you attracted to me?”

Tulip closed her eyes and grit her teeth, and wished she were somewhere else.

“It’s just that, if I knew you weren’t remotely attracted to me, and you think of me purely as a friend, and nothin’ … romantic is ever goin’ to happen between us, then I reckon it’d make it easier.”

She ought to lie to him. It ought to be easy. Hell, she never usually had a problem with lying. Why couldn’t her stubborn mouth form the necessary words?

“Tulip? Come on, love, help a fella out. Just tell me you’re not interested.”

She risked a glance at Cassidy, and instantly regretted it. There was desperation all over his beautiful face. She couldn’t stand it, so she hauled herself off the floor and stumbled towards the kitchen. Cassidy followed her like a lost puppy.

“Dammit, Cassidy, leave me alone,” she snapped. He was standing too close to her. And now she was grabbing at the collar of his tee-shirt and the back of his neck, and she was kissing him.

It ended as abruptly as it started. They stood there, staring at each other, and Tulip didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It was equal parts funny and sad, the fact that she’d fallen in love with this man.

 


	10. Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One instance of homophobic language in this chapter.

Nothing ever worked out. Tulip had kissed him, and his insides had lit up like Christmas. But then, of course, she blamed it on the weed and acted like it never really happened.

He was in a bar, with Jesse, feeling like shit and hoping Jesse couldn’t tell. Probably not. Cassidy was good at covering up the real stuff with nonsense, and he’d been talking Jesse’s ear off about Tarrantino films all evening. Jesse, the muppet, had never seen Reservoir Dogs.

Around ten o’clock, a trio of morons walked in, braying with laughter about something or other. Cassidy didn’t give them a moment’s thought, until they passed Jesse and one of them muttered “There’s a priest here guys, better lock up your seven-year-old brothers,” and the other two laughed as if it were the most original joke they’d ever heard. Cassidy, like the mature, well-adjusted adult he was, stuck his foot out and tripped the joker, causing him to fall flat on his face.

“What the fuck, man?” he groaned, pulling himself upright.

“Don’t be a baby,” said Cassidy. “You know you deserved it.”

“The fuck did I do?”

“You insulted me friend.”

“Cass, just leave it. They’re a bunch of kids,” Jesse interjected. Sure enough, they looked barely old enough to drink in a bar. But all three were tall and well-built, and now they were crowding in on Cassidy, flexing their muscles and their jaws.

“So what if we did?” said the ringleader. “What you gonna do about it, you queer-ass faggot?”  

Cassidy smiled, swallowed the dregs of his beer, then calmly broke the bottle over the moron’s head.

The fight was easy enough, but not so easy as to be boring. The three kids could all throw a decent punch, but hardly any of them landed. They even started getting in each other’s way, which was entertaining. At one point, when Jesse had the biggest in a headlock, Cassidy caught his eye and they grinned hugely at each other. For a moment, Cassidy forgot about Tulip and forgot about how he had betrayed Jesse, and felt a sudden, mad rush of affection.

When it was over, they left the bar (with some “gentle encouragement” from security) and stumbled home. Tulip opened the door to them, took in Jesse’s split lip and general, rather attractive dishevelment, and immediately dragged him off to their bedroom.

Cassidy switched the TV on and turned the volume right up. Flipping through the channels, he found a documentary called “Serial Killers of the 80s”, so he watched a bit of that without really paying attention. Having felt guilty as sin for most of the day, it was now time to feel sorry for himself.

He knew that it was his lot in life to be an outsider. There were so many places and people and things that were off-limits, and he usually accepted that. But he wished, God, he _wished_ that he was allowed beyond that bedroom door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm blatantly ripping off the comics with the whole "Cassidy feels guilty so he gets over-protective of Jesse's honour and ends up in a fight" thing.


	11. Want

Years ago, Tulip had said something to Jesse that he struggled to get his head around. They were in bed together, in the afterglow of Saturday morning sex, when Tulip brushed her fingertips across his cheek and said “Jesse Custer, I ain’t never wanted anyone the way I want you.”

Jesse smiled like the Cheshire cat, and said “You sure know how to stroke a man’s ego, babe.”

“Don’t get big-headed about it, though. That’s more to do with me than with you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means I can count the men I’ve wanted on three fingers.”

“Aw, bullshit.”

Tulip’s face hardened, suddenly and dangerously. She sat up, drawing her knees towards her body, looking pissed off and defensive. “It ain’t bullshit, Jesse.”

“Tulip, I wasn’t calling you a … I didn’t mean anything by it, I just meant it’s natural to want people.”

“Not for me it ain’t. Not until I know them, inside and out. Even then, it doesn’t usually happen.”

Jesse was confused. As a kid, he’d overheard enough women confessing their sins to know that they lusted just as much as men. They fantasized about their gardeners and their friends’ husbands and barely legal pizza delivery guys. Jesse didn’t judge. It was normal.

“So there ya go,” said Tulip, in a strangely brittle voice. “You’re an exception, Jesse.”

Well, how about that. Jesse Custer – a thieving, drinking sonofabitch – was the one that Tulip O’Hare wanted. And apparently, Tulip O’Hare wasn’t prone to wanting anyone. Jesse kissed Tulip gently, wanting to get rid of that antsy look on her face. Wanting her to feel as good as he felt.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I accidentally made Tulip demisexual.


	12. Confession

Jesse was irresistible after a fight. Maybe it wasn’t exactly healthy, or whatever, but Tulip found fresh bruises and that crazy glint in his eyes a major fucking turn-on. This time, though, that wasn’t the reason she took him to bed as soon as he got home.

She knew immediately what had happened. Cassidy, unable to deal with whatever emotional maelstrom was going on inside him since that kiss in the kitchen, had stirred up trouble and gotten himself and Jesse into a fight. If Tulip let this carry on, there would be more trouble and bigger trouble and the kind of trouble that wasn’t fun at all. Cassidy, Tulip knew for sure, was the kind of man to self-destruct and inflict huge collateral damage in the process. Her mind was made up. They couldn’t carry on like this. She had to tell Jesse what was going on.

First, though, sex. Lots of it. She made love to Jesse like it was the last time, kissing him endlessly and marking his skin with her nails and teeth. She told him that she loved him, wanted him, needed him so much. She didn’t come, but she didn’t care. It wasn’t about that, this time.

Afterwards, Jesse pulled her on top of him and she rested her head on his sweat-damp chest. The idea of closing her eyes and letting herself drift off to sleep was real tempting. But there was no turning back now. She said gently, “Jesse, I have to tell you something.” Then she told him everything.

She told him how she and Cassidy had fucked, just once, back when they were practically strangers. She told him that she’d fallen in love with him, though she couldn’t explain how. She told him about the kiss in the kitchen, and how there was no mistaking the way that Cassidy looked at her. She told Jesse that she loved him more than ever, until the end of the world, and she couldn’t bear to lose him again. But sometimes she looked at Cassidy and could hardly stand to be so close to him and not kiss him, touch him, tell him how she felt about him.

Tulip said all this without raising her head off of Jesse’s chest. It was probably a good sign that he didn’t push her off, though she felt his body go rigid underneath her. When she ran out of words, she knew it was time to sit up and finally face the shock and hurt and anger in Jesse’s eyes. She swiped a palm across her face (she had started crying at some point, and was irritated with herself because of it) and forced herself upright.

Jesse’s face was eerily blank. Tulip panicked, and started talking again. She told Jesse that she would never lay a finger on Cassidy if he wasn’t cool with it. She told him everything she could remember from her guilty, late-night Google search of “polyamory”. She told him that it needn’t be a one-sided thing. If there was someone he wanted…

Finally, Jesse spoke. With the same, indecipherable expression, he said, “Ain’t nobody I want except you, Tulip.” Then he got out of bed, pulled on boxers and a tee-shirt, and left the bedroom.

For a moment, Tulip assumed he just needed time and space to process everything she’d unloaded on him. Then another wave of panic washed over her, and she scrambled after him, saying, “Look, none of this is Cassidy’s fault. Be mad at me, sure, but don’t be mad at him, please.”

She followed Jesse into the kitchen. The kitchen, full of sharp knives. Unspeakable images flooded her mind and her voice came out as a sob. “Please, Jesse, don’t hurt him.”

Jesse reached into a cupboard and pulled out a bottle of whisky. He turned to face Tulip and said, calmly, “I ain’t gonna hurt him. I’m gonna have one last drink with him, and then I’m gonna tell him to move out.”


	13. One Last Drink

Cassidy had retreated to his bedroom and was tucked up in bed, watching a YouTube clip of the British Prime Minister dancing awkwardly on his phone, when Jesse’s voice drifted through the door. “Cass, you still up?”

“Yeah, come on in.” The first thing Cassidy noticed was the whisky bottle. The second thing he noticed was the look on Jesse’s face, which made it painfully clear that this was not a celebratory drink. Jesse sat down on the bed beside Cassidy, albeit on top of the covers rather than underneath. He propped himself up against the headboard and poured two generous measures of whisky. He smelled like sex.

Jesse handed Cassidy a whisky and asked, in a scarily calm voice, “Are you in love with Tulip?”

So he knew. And now Cassidy was about to lose his two favourite people. What the fuck could he do except knock back the whisky like it was a mouthful of water and admit the truth?

“Yes. I’m sorry.” His voice came out very small and sad.

Jesse sighed and took a gulp of his own drink. “Can’t say I blame you. Did you know she’s in love with you, too?”

Christ and Saint Agnes. In love with _him_? Tulip O’Hare was in love with him? For a moment, the revelation felt like a hit of something stronger and purer than he’d ever had. But that only lasted for a moment, because the fact remained that Tulip was Jesse’s. And Jesse was, despite all the complications, his very best mate.

His best mate who was making short work of that whisky. “She told me some stuff,” he said, in a voice that sounded thick, like he was talking around a lump in his throat.

“What sorta stuff?”

“Stuff about you and her. And me. And … this polyamory shit that she’d been looking up.”

“Okay… Will you tell me?”

They talked long into the night. The conversation swerved and wobbled and went off on weird tangents. They talked about Tulip, and how she had clearly been put on this earth to torture them. They talked about polyamory, and what a crazy idea of Tulip’s that was. Sure, some people made it work, but not them. They were too fucked-up. They talked about Cassidy moving out, and where he would go, and how soon.

Eventually, there was no more whisky to drink and no more words to say. They were both exhausted and emotionally drained, and Jesse was leaning against Cassidy as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Someone’s stomach started growling, and Cassidy wasn’t sure if it was his or Jesse’s. This happened sometimes, when they were drunk and sitting very close together. All the usual boundaries started to dissolve.

“How about a midnight snack?” Cassidy suggested.

“It’s almost 3am.”

“Well, how about a 3am snack then?”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ll go rustle something up.”

Cassidy swung his legs out of bed. He was at the bedroom door when Jesse called out after him, “Cass, don’t go.”

“Thought you were hungry, Padre?”

“No, I mean … don’t move out. I know things are a mess right now. I just need some time to think about things.”

“What things?”

“Like … making this work, somehow.”

“Oh.”

Cassidy tried to keep his face under control, but probably failed miserably. His eyebrows had a habit of shooting up into his hairline when he was surprised.

“Don’t get all excited, I ain’t saying yes to anything. But I ain’t saying no, either. Just give me time, okay? And promise me you’ll keep your hands to yourself in the meantime.”

“You got my word, mate.”

Cassidy lingered in the doorway for a moment, looking at Jesse and fighting the urge to go back to the bed and kiss him. Not in a sexual way (though he’d certainly thought about that, on occasion). Just as a way of expressing … whatever it was, that he was feeling. Instead, he said “You’re amazing, you know,” and scurried off to the kitchen before Jesse could respond.

 

 


	14. The Triangle

Jesse was a thinker. His mind was always chewing away at something like a dog with a bone. It was a lifelong habit, and there were only two people in the world who were able to drag him out of his own thoughts.

Tulip did it by force. Whenever he’d been brooding for too long, she would get up in his personal space and say firmly, “Time to stop thinking, Jesse.” Then she would kiss him. It was always the type of kiss that you couldn’t ignore.

Cassidy stopped him thinking more gently. Maybe without even meaning to. Just the way he was – always bubbling over with nonsensical theories and movie trivia and a million crazy stories – stopped Jesse from dwelling on anything too serious for too long when he was in Cassidy’s company.

Now, unfortunately, Tulip and Cassidy had Jesse’s mind working overtime. He thought of a hundred possibilities of how things could be between the three of them. He weighed up pros and cons, and thought of best-case scenarios and worst-case scenarios. Basically, he drove himself crazy. In the end, he got so fucking sick of his brain that he had to listen to his gut.

He made the decision on a Tuesday morning, at breakfast. The three of them generally ate breakfast together, these days. Weirdly, they all seemed a little more at ease with each other now that everything was out in the open. Cassidy managed to burn himself on the toaster and yelped, flicking his hand back and forth as if trying to shake the pain out. Tulip pushed back her chair instantly and said, “Lemme see,” taking hold of Cassidy’s hand. She held it as if it were something very precious for a second or two, then said roughly, “You’ll live. Run it under cold water.”

The scene gave Jesse a feeling he couldn’t put a name to. It was a good feeling, albeit a confusing one. It was like … like there was a line, joining him and Tulip, and it was made out of love. And there was a line joining him and Cassidy, and that was made out of love too, though it was a different kind. And now there was a line joining Tulip and Cassidy, and it tied the three of them together, inescapably.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone! XOXO


	15. Second Time

Jesse seemed to be coming around to the idea. They’d talked about it, and this time it was an actual conversation rather than Tulip word-vomiting everything she’d researched about polyamory and Jesse listening with a blank stare. He’d been curious. More open to things than she’d dared hope.

Then there was that time when the three of them got a little tipsy in the evening, and Tulip ended up leaning against Cassidy, silently relishing the feel of his wiry body against hers. Jesse gave the two of them a hard stare, then the corner of his mouth quirked upward and he said, “You wanna kiss each other, don’t you?”

“Maybe,” said Tulip, feeling awkward and shy in a way she wasn’t used to. Cassidy said nothing, but his face probably answered the question for him.

“Go ahead,” said Jesse, half-turning away and swigging his beer.

Desire and alcohol overcame any uncertainty, and Tulip and Cassidy kissed like there was no tomorrow. When they broke apart, Jesse avoided Tulip’s eye. But she turned his face towards her and kissed him too, and judging by the eagerness of his mouth, he was okay.

A few days after that, the three of them were eating an early, lazy dinner of Chinese takeaway, when Jesse announced “I got another lead on the God hunt. This biker, says he saw God riding a Harley in North Dakota.”

“A Harley? Sounds like bollocks to me, mate,” said Cassidy.

“Probably, but it’s the best we got right now so I’m gonna go meet him at a bar. Probably be out for a couple hours. And you two can do whatever you want while I’m gone.”

For the briefest of moments, Tulip’s brain short-circuited.

As Jesse was heading out the door, Tulip asked him if he was sure. He said he was, and in that moment, Tulip loved him so much that she didn’t want him to leave. But then he left, and Cassidy was right there, and they could do whatever the hell they wanted.

So Tulip did what she’d been longing to do. She placed a hand either side of Cassidy’s face and said “I’m crazy in love with you, Cass.”

Cassidy beamed, and said “I’m crazy in love with you too. But you already knew that, right?”

Tulip laughed, and nodded, and said “Can we fuck now?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

***

It ought to be the easiest, most natural thing in the world. They’d wanted each other for so long. But as they stumbled towards Cassidy’s bedroom, hands and mouths all over each other, Tulip remembered an inconvenient truth.

She had never really enjoyed sex with anyone but Jesse. With Viktor, she had put on an Oscar-worthy performance twice a week. There had been times when she was able to get into it. There had also been times when her lack of attraction had been impossible to overcome, and sex became a chore that left her queasy and irritable. Her first time with Cassidy had been a means to an end. She barely remembered how it felt, but she remembered feeling shitty afterwards. Of course she felt shitty – she hadn’t been remotely attracted to him, then. She didn’t know him.

“Tulip, love, are you okay?”

Tulip snapped back into the moment. She was straddling Cassidy, who was sitting on the edge of the bed. Her blouse was halfway across the room, along with Cassidy’s tee-shirt, and his hands were running slowly up and down her sides. 

“Yeah, I’m good, baby.” She was hoping the new endearment would distract him, but Cassidy had a tendency to see through any cheap tricks she used on him.

“Feels a lot more like the first time than the actual first time, doesn’t it?”

“Mm.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

She could power through it. She’d done that plenty of times before. But this time, that felt like cheating.

“Kinda nervous, maybe.”

“Me too.”

Hesitantly, Tulip leaned forward and rested her head in the crook of Cassidy’s neck. He wrapped his arms around her and she let her body go soft and pliable. He held her like that for a long time.

There wasn’t a lot that scared Tulip, but this – asking to be held – required a particular kind of courage that Tulip didn’t have much of. Jesse didn’t have much of it either. Cassidy, she suspected, had plenty of it. Maybe even enough to share.

Slowly, they got things going again. Tulip took her bra off and Cassidy spent an eternity kissing her breasts. It was amazing how patient he was with her, considering the poor guy was hard as a rock.

Just as Tulip was getting worked up and breathless, Cassidy gave her a dangerous grin and said “Here’s an idea,” then picked her up and put her on her back with one effortless twist of his body. Her jeans and panties were off in seconds, and Cassidy settled himself between her legs, pressing scratchy kisses against the soft skin of her inner thighs.

“Cass,” Tulip groaned, “Come on, I want you inside me.”

“Let’s be honest, love,” said Cassidy, popping back into her field of vision. “I’ve been wanting this forever and a day, and I’m not gonna last long. So let’s take care of you first, eh?”

Goddamn, Cassidy had a skillful tongue. By the time he was finally inside her, Tulip was so drunk on pleasure that her earlier fear seemed like a vague, distant memory.

 


	16. Gratitude

Cassidy was a happy little vampire. In fact, he was hard-pressed to think of a time when he’d been happier. Things were actually working out with Tulip and Jesse, which seemed nothing short of miraculous. Things never worked out for him, and yet here he was, with a wonderful girl who loved him, maybe even as much as he loved her, and an amazing friend who was willing to put aside years of conservative Christian indoctrination and share that wonderful girl with him.

He was incredibly grateful for it. The whole business had given him a newfound appreciation for his best mate. And that … well, that was a tiny fly in the ointment, because he found himself wanting to express that gratitude and appreciation in rather inappropriate ways.

These impulses ranged from wanting to kiss him on the cheek, to wanting to get down on his knees and show Jesse a very good time. It made no sense. Why was he having these thoughts now, when he ought to be fully focussed on Tulip? And he did think about Tulip, a hell of a lot. His mind buzzed with a million new experiences that all had to be processed and savoured and tucked away safe in his memory. The tastes and scents and textures of her. The things she liked and didn’t like. That scrunched up, comical, ridiculously beautiful face she made when she was about to come. But somehow, there was still room in his mind for fantasies about Jesse to sneak in.

Eventually, he got worried enough that he gave himself a talking-to (not a euphemism). The conversation went something like this:-

All right, Proinsias Cassidy, what’s going on here? Please tell me you’re not falling for the fella.

_I’m not._

You being honest with me?

_Yes._

So what is it? It’s not sexual frustration, that’s for sure.

_Give me a break. The boy’s sex on legs._

He’s always been sex on legs. Why now?

_I don’t know._

You sure about that?

_Maybe it’s some kind of self-sabotage thing. Maybe I feel like I don’t deserve this, so a part of my brain wants to screw it all up._

That sounds plausible.

_Or maybe … I didn’t think I’d ever be with Tulip, but now I am. I got what I wanted, and that doesn’t happen often, and maybe it’s like … I’m allowed to want things, now._

_…_

_…_

Greedy cunt.

_Yeah._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is already the longest fanfic I've ever written and Cass and Jesse haven't even kissed yet. If you've been reading this from the beginning, your patience is applauded!


	17. Walls

Jesse told himself not to focus on the sex part. Because it was about so much more than that – it was about letting people who loved each other be together, and figuring out how to be happy outside of the narrow, mostly-bullshit definition of family that he’d been raised on.

He’d got used to seeing Tulip and Cassidy kiss. Well, it didn’t piss him off, at least. Sometimes they were just a little _too_ adorable together, and it gave him a bittersweet ache that made him turn away. But sometimes that good feeling, still unnamed and difficult to understand, came back. That feeling of the three of them being bound together, tightly and perfectly.

Tulip spent some nights in his room and some nights in Cassidy’s, and Jesse found that sleeping alone didn’t bother him. Hell, it was a relief to have his own space sometimes. What did bother him was the thinness of the walls in the apartment, and the fact that he could occasionally hear Tulip and Cassidy fucking.

The muffled sounds went straight to his groin. It was only once he was hard and frustrated and pressing himself against the mattress (he stubbornly refused to touch himself) that his mind started working overtime with a frenzy of thoughts and images and insecurities.

One night, as Tulip curled up next to him and draped an arm over his chest, she murmured “I meant it, you know, when I said that … that if there was someone you wanted, you could be with her as well. I wasn’t just saying that to convince you about me and Cass.”

“I told you, Tulip, I don’t want any girl except you.”

It was the truth, but it was a messy kind of truth. He noticed other women, on the street or in bars or whatever. But though he might indulge in a brief fantasy, he never wanted to act on it. If there was anyone else he wanted to kiss, wanted to touch … maybe it wasn’t a girl.

 


	18. Hands

Jesse and Cassidy had behaved surprisingly well towards each other since this thing got started. Maybe Tulip shouldn’t be surprised by it. They might give each other shit sometimes, but there was respect there, underneath it all.

Jesse gave Cassidy the space and time to be alone with Tulip, and Cassidy did the same for Jesse, and that was good. It was great. But sometimes, Tulip liked it best when all three of them were together.

***

“Wait a second, I thought you said Mink was with Eddie the Dane,” said Tulip, frowning in confusion.

The three of them were watching Miller’s Crossing. Cassidy had talked them into it, and yeah, Tulip had to admit it was pretty good – she liked the tommy guns and the hardboiled dialogue, and Verna was a total badass – but the plot was so twisty it was melting her brain.

“He is, but Bernie’s shagging him as well. Jesus, I always forget how many of these fellas are screwing each other. Literally, as well as figuratively.”

“Isn’t this set in, like, the twenties or thirties?” said Jesse, looking slightly baffled.

“What, you think fellas didn’t shag each other back then?”

Jesse shrugged and looked embarrassed, which only made Cassidy tease him more. Tulip laughed, but she snuggled up against Jesse’s side affectionately, just to show him that she didn’t hold his naivety against him.

Cassidy scooched up closer against her other side, and damn, that was nice. To sit between her boys, surrounded by warmth and love … maybe she was acting like a twelve-year-old girl, but whatever. It was cosy, and the boys didn’t seem to mind it. It had been a little awkward at first, figuring out where everyone’s arms were supposed to go, but now it felt natural.

Tulip was so relaxed, in fact, that she started to drift off to sleep long before the end of the movie. It was a disjointed kind of sleep, though – waking up for a minute or two, then falling back into strange dreams, so that everything got mixed up. Was there really a guy dressed as a rodeo clown in Miller’s Crossing, or did she dream that? And did she dream up that other thing, or did that actually happen?

It only lasted a moment. Jesse’s hand was resting casually on her leg, just above the knee. Tulip looked down (either with her actual eyes, or in her mind’s eye) and saw Cassidy’s pale hand reach across her lap and cover Jesse’s hand. There was a second of stillness, and then a haze of movement as Jesse’s hand turned, fingers curled. Then the hands broke apart and disappeared, and Tulip was left with the vague impression of two wild animals sniffing each other. Checking for danger.   


	19. Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As the title would suggest, this chapter contains a little gore. Nothing particularly graphic or gross, though.

“We’re gonna have to find a new place to live, aren’t we?” said Cassidy, gritting his teeth against the pain in his foot. Or rather, the place where his foot used to be.

“Yep,” said Jesse. “We gotta get out of Louisiana, that’s for sure. Texas probably ain’t safe either, so I’m thinking Arkansas.”

Tulip said nothing. She just drove, with a dark fury written in the lines of her face.

It was inevitable, Cassidy thought, that the Grail would make trouble just when things were going so well. He was a little bit sad to be leaving their apartment. True enough, the place itself was nothing special. And the walls were surely riddled with bullet holes now, after all that unpleasantness. And that Grail operative with the bloody machete had really done a number on the furniture before he went after Cassidy. Still, good things had happened in that apartment, and for that reason, Cassidy was sorry to leave.

When Tulip finally spoke, it was to say “We’re almost outta gas,” before turning sharply into a gas station. She left the car, and Jesse turned back to look at Cassidy, frowning in concern.

“How you doing, Cass?”

“I been better. Let me know if you see any stray cats or dogs or anything.”

“We’ll get you blood real soon, I promise.”

“We can’t get it from a hospital. Those Grail eejits know all about me, they’ve probably got spies at every blood bank in the state.”

Jesse sighed in a resigned sort of way, as if he’d been thinking that and Cassidy had confirmed it. Then things got weird.

“How much blood do you need?”

“Oh, not much. Hands and feet are easy enough to grow back.”

“Mm-hm. We trust each other, right, Cass?”

“I bloody hope so, given our… situation. Why do you ask?”

But Jesse didn’t answer, he was rummaging around in the glove compartment. Then he got out of the car, opened the back door and slid in next to Cassidy. He was holding one of those little flick knives, and Cassidy realised that he did trust Jesse. Completely. His fight or flight mechanism didn’t kick in even a little at the sight of the knife, despite the fact that he’d been brutally attacked less than an hour ago.

“You can have some of my blood,” said Jesse, casually rolling up his sleeve.

“I’m sorry, what?!”

“What’s the big deal? You need blood, I got plenty of it. Nothing’s gonna happen, right, as long as you don’t bite me?”

“Well, yeah, but-”

“But what?”

“It just seems like a really big step, is all. I think we should, like, discuss it.”

“Cass, we don’t have time to talk about our fucking feelings. Tulip’s gonna be back any minute and we gotta get back on the road. Also, you’re still bleeding all over her car and you’re a weird, greenish-greyish colour.”

Cassidy looked down at his stump, which was still oozing and dripping dark blood. There was no denying he felt like shit.

“Don’t let me drink too much,” he said firmly. “I think you should set a timer on your phone.”

“For how long?”

“A minute. But if you want me to stop before the minute’s up, just say so.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Jesse, in a business-like voice, as he set the timer on his phone, then made a small, precise cut on his forearm. The blood welled up, the colour of rubies, and Cassidy’s head swam. Maybe it was his injury, maybe it was Jesse. Offering himself, like it was the natural thing to do. Cassidy couldn’t do anything but stare.

“Come on, Cass, you’re wasting it!” Jesse exclaimed, in a bizarrely frustrated voice, as the blood started to run down his arm. Just to shut him up, Cassidy grabbed the arm and pressed his mouth to the cut.

One cautious lap of the tongue and Cassidy was lost. His eyes fluttered closed and he had to make a conscious effort not to make any weird noises. Jesse tasted incredible, and his skin was warm and soft, and he was actually _letting_ Cassidy do this. For the first twenty seconds or so, Cassidy was tentative, licking rather than sucking. Then he felt a hand on the back of his head, gentle, stroking his hair.

“It’s okay,” Jesse murmured. “You’re okay.”

It was too much. The taste, and the feeling of bone and flesh forming as he drank, and now Jesse’s hand, his voice, his _kindness_. It was overwhelming, and Cassidy sucked hard at the wound, wanting to stop Jesse from being all sweet. Wanting him to understand that he was in danger. That he was bleeding in a shark tank, so to speak. Jesse’s hand tightened in his hair, grabbing a handful of it. Atta boy. Keep the beastie under control.

The alarm on Jesse’s phone went off and Cassidy sprang away from Jesse, startled. He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth and tried to ignore the fact that Jesse was staring at him, looking inscrutable. It really wasn’t fair. Jesse’s face gave absolutely nothing away, while Cassidy’s bloodlust and actual lust was probably written all over him.

“You’re a brave lad, Jesse Custer,” he said quietly.

“You’re a sloppy eater,” said Jesse.

Cassidy glanced at Jesse’s arm and saw what he was on about. Blood was smeared messily around the cut and in the crook of his elbow.

“Well, then,” said Cassidy. And with that incredibly articulate response, he took Jesse’s arm and licked him clean. By the time he was finished, both of them were breathing heavily. Cassidy was just beginning to wonder how gross it would be to kiss someone and taste your own blood on their tongue, when Tulip opened the car door and slid in with an armful of snacks.

“Didn’t know how long we’d be driving for, so I got a bunch of stuff.”

Without missing a beat, Cassidy grabbed a York Peppermint Pattie and handed it to Jesse, figuring he should eat something after donating blood. He took a Snapple for himself. He really had to get rid of the taste or it would drive him insane.


	20. First Night

They wound up in Arkansas and found a new place. It was just as crummy as their last apartment, since they couldn’t afford anything better (there had been a long, loud argument between Jesse and Tulip about whether affording a nice apartment was a morally acceptable reason to rob a bank) but it was safe, at least for now. And it was theirs.

That was reason enough to celebrate with a few beers. Well, Jesse and Tulip had a few beers. Cassidy had a few beers, half a bottle of whisky and a mystery pill that he found in his pocket. None of it seemed to affect him in the slightest.

“A toast!” crowed Tulip, from her seat on the arm of the couch. “To our new home.” She leaned forward to clink her bottle against Jesse’s and in the process, slipped tipsily into Cassidy’s lap with a yelp.

“All right love, I’ve got ya,” said Cassidy, grinning. Tulip grinned back, then kissed him, hard.

Jesse watched as Tulip rearranged her legs, straddling Cassidy, who grabbed her around the waist and murmured endearments against her neck. Jesse could make out the word “gorgeous”, but nothing else. He found himself leaning towards them, trying to make out the words. It was strange. A few weeks ago, he wouldn’t have been able to watch this. Now he couldn’t look away, even when Cassidy’s hands wandered lower and squeezed Tulip’s ass. He realized, with only mild alarm, that he was getting turned on.

“Mmm, that’s real nice, Cass, but I think Jesse’s feeling kinda left out,” said Tulip, pulling Cassidy gently away from her neck.

“Sorry, was that a bit much?” said Cassidy.

“Not at all,” said Jesse, feeling suddenly defiant. Why the hell should he feel guilty about watching Tulip and Cass? Why should he feel guilty about liking it? They were fucking sexy together.

Tulip, obviously encouraged by this, wriggled off of Cassidy’s lap and gave Jesse a kiss as deep and hot as the pits of hell. “Damn,” Jesse breathed against her lips.

“You know what’d make me real happy?” she said, pulling back from Jesse and looking even more dangerous than usual.

“What?” said Jesse and Cassidy in unison.

“If you guys kissed.”

Oh.

It wasn’t much of a surprise – Tulip had always thought dude-on-dude was hot, and of course she had always been a troublemaker. Dammit, why wasn’t he prepared for this? At least Cassidy was no more composed than Jesse, blushing like a little girl being asked to her first dance.

“What’s the big deal?” Tulip coaxed. “You’ve already shared bodily fluids. And blood’s way grosser than spit.”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Jesse deadpanned, and looked at Cassidy, who was still pink and squirmy with embarrassment. Did he want to? Jesse wanted to ask him, but that would mean admitting that this wasn’t entirely for Tulip’s benefit. Instead, he leaned towards Cassidy, slipped a hand round the back of his neck, and pulled him forwards cautiously.

It was a good kiss. Scarily good. Struggling to regain composure, Jesse looked at Tulip and said “Happy?”

“Very.”

They could have stopped there. But they didn’t. Instead, they all fell to kissing each other with increasing urgency. Two pairs of hands unbuttoning Tulip’s shirt. Hands on Jesse’s ass, and he didn’t know if they were Tulip’s or Cassidy’s or one of each. Tulip was already making those little overexcited, panting noises she made when she was particularly turned on, and Jesse couldn’t blame her. He was hard and hungry and God, he wanted this.

Then, like an idiot, he started thinking. What if he couldn’t deal with it? It was one thing to watch Tulip and Cassidy kiss, and a whole different thing to watch them fuck. What if the heat in his blood turned back into anger, like the reversal of a spell? And what the hell was he supposed to do with Cassidy? Jesse had no idea how to do anything except want, and be confused, and, apparently, kiss him.

They were all down to their underwear by the time Tulip noticed Jesse’s distraction. Cassidy didn’t notice anything, but Jesse couldn’t blame him since he was on his knees in front of Tulip with his tongue inside her navel.

“You okay, babe? You wanna stop?”

“No, but … can we hit pause, for a moment?”

Tulip tugged on Cassidy’s hair, dragging his attention upwards. He looked up at Jesse, all puppy-dog eyes and mussed-up hair, and Jesse almost forgot his worries. But not quite.

“Cass, if this is gonna happen I think you and I should talk ground rules.”

“Oh, okay. Do we have to move?”

“Bathroom.”

“Christ, gimme a minute.”

“Are you two gonna start without me in there?” Tulip called after them as they stumbled, lust-drunk, towards the bathroom.

“No!” Jesse spluttered.

“S’okay, I don’t mind. I’m probably gonna start without you out here.”

***

Jesse perched awkwardly on the edge of the tub. Cassidy closed the bathroom door, leaned against it and said, “Right, so where’s the line with me and Tulip? I know you’re okay with seeing us kiss, how about-”

“You and Tulip can do whatever the fuck you wanna do,” Jesse interrupted, surprising himself. “If I can’t handle it, I’ll … remove myself from the situation.”

“That’s very mature.”

“Yeah, I thought so. But with, y’know, you and me. I think we need some boundaries.”

“And where exactly would these boundaries be?” Cassidy’s smile was teasing, and the heat that spread through Jesse’s gut in response to that smile showed just how necessary these hypothetical boundaries were. Without them, Jesse would melt into a puddle of mixed-up, angsty desire.

“I think we should focus on Tulip, like a tag team kinda situation. No below the waist stuff between you and me.”

“Wait, do you mean that literally? Like, you don’t even want me touching your feet?”

“Do you wanna touch my feet?”

“Well, not right now, but maybe in the heat of the moment.”

Jesse laughed, sounding and feeling slightly hysterical. Cassidy knelt down in front of him, placed his hands on Jesse’s knees, then snatched them away.

“Sorry, I forgot about the nothing below the waist rule.”

“I didn’t mean that literally, I meant no touching of _this_ area.” Jesse gestured vaguely at his crotch. Cassidy brought his hands back to Jesse’s knees, stroking them soothingly.

“You know, we don’t have to do this.”

“I want to.”

“I know, mate. But y’know how it is. Sometimes the brain takes a while to catch up with the body. That’s all right, we’ve got time.”

Strangely, the idea that he didn’t have to do anything made him want to do everything. He pulled Cassidy into a slow, lingering kiss, then said “Y’know what? I’m done thinking for tonight.”

Cassidy’s wicked smile returned as he pulled Jesse to his feet. “Right, then, let’s get going. It’s one thing to let the lady start without us, but I think letting her finish without us is bad manners.”

Jesse sniggered. The situation might be new, but Cassidy was still very much Cassidy, and Tulip was still very much Tulip. Yeah, this was gonna be good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what's surprisingly fun to write? Awkward threesome negotiations!


	21. Breakfast

Slipping out of bed without waking either of the boys was a challenge, since Tulip was in the middle. Fortunately, both of them were deep in a sex coma and didn’t even stir. She made her way to the kitchen on shaky legs. Everything between her waist and her knees ached, but damn, it had been worth it.

She had the idea of making them a real nice, fancy breakfast, as a thank you. They had certainly seemed to enjoy themselves last night, but there was no doubt that Tulip had gotten the best of it. Besides, they would probably wake up starving, given all the calories they had burnt. Tulip was pretty damn hungry herself.

After a few minutes of scrolling through recipes on her phone, she decided to try making eggs benedict. Of course, she didn’t have all the ingredients for hollandaise sauce, so she would have to improvise a little. What the hell was a banana shallot? Could she just use a banana instead?

By the time Cassidy appeared, things were going disastrously badly. The eggs had decided to fall apart in the water instead of poaching properly, and Tulip had just learnt that it was possible to burn butter.

“What’s cooking?” said Cassidy, hugging her from behind and kissing the top of her head.

“It’s a fucking mess, is what it is. It’s supposed to be eggs benedict.”

“Nah, it looks all right to me.”

“No offense, Cass, but you eat stray cats. Nobody with a gag reflex is gonna be able to eat this.” Tulip threw down the spatula is exasperation. “Why the hell can’t I cook one decent fucking meal?”

“Hey, it’s all right, love. So you’re not a domestic goddess. So bloody what? You’re every other kind of goddess.”

Tulip turned around in Cassidy’s arms, threw her own arms around his neck and kissed his cheek about a million times.

Over his shoulder, she saw Jesse appear in the kitchen doorway. Fully dressed, and looking a little dazed. “What’s for breakfast?” he asked.

“Pop tarts,” said Tulip.


	22. Bedtime Story

Things had shifted, somehow. At their old apartment, there had been Cassidy’s bedroom and Jesse’s bedroom, and Tulip had divided her nights between the two. Simple. Here in Arkansas, things were maybe a little more … fluid.

“Cassidy, get in here! Tulip called from Jesse’s bedroom.

Cassidy’s stomach did a pleasant little somersault – he’d been thinking about that first night in the apartment _a lot_ – but one look at Tulip and Jesse told him that sexy times were not on the cards tonight. They were tucked up in bed, not even close to naked, and Jesse looked half-asleep already.

“Tell us a bedtime story, Cass,” Tulip insisted.

Cassidy rolled his eyes in mock-exasperation and said “Move over, then.”

Tulip and Jesse made just enough space for him (the bed wasn’t really big enough for three) and Cassidy settled himself beside Tulip, staying above the covers for now. “Right then, boys and girls. What kind of story do we want to hear tonight?”

“How ‘bout the one with the fire eater in Liverpool,” Jesse suggested, perking up just a little.

“I haven’t heard that one,” said Tulip.

“You’ll like it,” said Jesse, with a sly smile, and Cassidy had to agree. Suddenly feeling that there was nowhere in the world he would rather be, he began the story.

“Once upon a time, I was in Liverpool and I was really in the mood for an appletini, and a fight. Luckily, I knew this pub where ordering the first would get you the second…”

By the time Cassidy finished the story, Jesse was asleep. Tulip was heading in that direction herself, but apparently she wanted to snuggle first. Cassidy was very much up for that. He slipped under the covers, luxuriating in the heat of Tulip’s body like a lizard on a sun-baked rock. They were silent a long time, so as not to wake Jesse, and when Tulip finally spoke, her voice was hushed.

“You got a heck of a lot of stories, huh Cass?”

“Yeah.”

“You know you can tell us any of them, right? Not just the funny ones. You can tell us anything.”

“I don’t know about that, love.”

“Why not?”

Cassidy’s stomach clenched. It was always a judgement call, knowing how honest to be. Usually, the right call was not to be anything approaching honest. But this was Tulip.

“Because if you knew what a bastard I’ve been, at times, you and Jesse would kick me out.”

“That ain’t happening,” said Tulip, with a pugnacious look. “I love you too much. Jesse loves you too.”

Cassidy dropped his voice to a whisper, just in case. “He’s never said anything.”

“Well, he does. Why do you think he’s in bed with both of us right now?”

“Because he loves _you_. And you wanted to be with me.”

“He could’ve said no. I never would’ve left him, he knows that.”

“Yeah, but he was trying to do right by you. You know what he’s like, always trying to do the right thing."

Tulip gave a quiet, frustrated sigh. “You got it wrong, Cass.”

“How?”

“Jesse gets his sense of right and wrong from his daddy. I know you never met him, but Jesse’s told you about him, right? You really think a guy like that can see anything good, or right, in this kinda relationship?”

“Hmm. I s’pose not.”

“Exactly. You just gotta be patient with Jesse. He’s dealing with a whole bunch of childhood crap, here.”

Cassidy nodded, and kissed Tulip on the forehead. Behind her, Jesse slept on, oblivious.

“Can I tell you another story, love? It’s a not-funny one.”

“Sure you can.”

Cassidy told her about Peg and Harry. It was the first time he’d spoken about them since the seventies. He told her how, through no fault of their own, they had battered his marshmallow of a heart so badly that he’d pretty much decided to stop loving anyone. Tulip held him close, and said that wasn’t his decision to make. People were made the way they were made, and Cassidy was obviously made to love people.

 


	23. One Skinny Vampire's Clever Hands

Tulip had gone to bed early with a ferocious headache so naturally, Jesse and Cassidy decided to stay up and get shitfaced together. They half-watched the TV (some reality show about dogs going on diets) and mostly talked. Maybe it was the liquor, or the late hour, but the conversation quickly got out of hand.

“Jesus, Padre, what’ve _you_ got to be insecure about? You and Tulip lost your virginity together, you’ve got _history_ on your side here. You probably know what she likes a hell of a lot better than I do.”

“What’ve I got to be insecure about? You’ve got, like, a century of hook-ups under your belt. Ain’t no competing with that level of experience.”

Cassidy waved his hand dismissively, almost knocking over the whisky bottle in the process. “You know, it’s daft to think like this.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

 “I mean, we’re on the same bloody team, aren’t we?”

“Yup. Team Tulip.”

“Exactly.”

“How many women have you slept with?”

“Excuse me?”

Whoops. Jesse really ought to stop drinking. “I just wondered, is all. S’hard not to be curious.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint you, Padre, but I stopped counting a very long time ago.”

“I guess you been around the block, huh?”

“I’ve been around the whole bloody world, mate.”

“You ever been with a man?”

Shit. Jesse cursed the whisky in his blood. Cassidy smiled, showing a lot of teeth.

“I’m a hundred and twenty years old and easily bored. What do you think?”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yeah, that’s a yes. How ‘bout you?”

Jesse shook his head. “Always liked girls. And where I’m from, kids don’t really … experiment. Too fuckin’ risky with all the bigots around.”

“Did you ever want to?”

“I dunno, maybe it crossed my mind once or twice.”

“Oh, aye?”

Jesse thought back to those high school days, when he’d been a roiling mess of hormones. But the memories were hazy, and a much clearer, more recent memory kept elbowing its way to the front of his mind.

That first night in the apartment. He and Cassidy had kept to their agreement and hadn’t done any “below the waist stuff”. But they hadn’t exactly ignored each other, either. They had kissed a lot, and let their hands roam freely over chests and stomachs. And there had been that moment, when Tulip was sprawled out on the bed in a post-orgasmic stupor, and Cassidy had turned his attention to Jesse. Pressing open-mouthed kisses along his collar bone, then heading south to suck at his nipple. It had felt incredible, and Jesse had been a second away from throwing rules and agreements and inhibitions out the window, and telling Cassidy he could do whatever the hell he wanted with that glorious mouth of his. But then he turned his head to the side and caught sight of Tulip. She had a knowing smirk on her face. A smirk that had to be wiped off. His attention shifted, and it became all about Tulip again.

Jesse felt feverish, and the space on the couch between him and Cassidy seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. He should go to bed. Slip in next to Tulip and try to sleep. Instead, he asked “You been with a lot of guys?”

“Nah, just a few. Don’t get me wrong, it can be bloody fantastic. But I’m a lot more picky with men.”

Don’t ask.

Don’t ask.

Don’t ask.

“Would you pick me?”

“Hm?”

“Say we met in a bar, and-”

“We did meet in a bar.”

“You know what I mean. Say we weren’t friends, and you were out looking for … a good time, and we met. Would you want me?”

Cassidy picked at the label on the whisky bottle and said “Honestly, I think it’s because you’re me friend that I want you so much.”

Okay, that was the final straw. Jesse pretty much lunged at Cassidy, and the whisky bottle fell to the floor. They kissed clumsily, hands all over the place. When Jesse started rutting against his friend like a horny teenager, Cassidy grabbed him by the hair and wrenched his head back, giving him a searching look.

“How drunk are you?”

“Just the right amount,” said Jesse, pressing his erection against Cassidy’s hip for emphasis. Cassidy muttered something blasphemous, and unbuckled Jesse’s belt. The moment Cassidy touched him, Jesse knew this wasn’t a one-time thing. Crazy, really. All those years of being taught what men were and weren’t allowed to do with each other. All of his father’s carefully worded homophobia. Every slur thrown around with reckless abandon at high school. All of it swept away casually by one skinny vampire’s clever hands.

It was all over very quickly. They lay tangled together on the couch, still mostly clothed (Cassidy had gallantly sacrificed his tee-shirt to clean up their mess) and out of breath.

“So,” Cassidy began cautiously. “Are we just gonna chalk this up to booze and curiosity?”

“Is that what it was for you?”

“No. Been wanting to do that for a long time. But if you don’t feel the same, that’s okay. We can just leave it at that.”

“I don’t wanna leave it at that. I mean, _that_ was pretty damn good, but…”

“Glad to hear it. You know we’re gonna have to talk to Tulip about this, though.”

Damn. Everything was a conversation these days. Cassidy was right, though – they had kinda jumped the gun. Jerking off your girlfriend’s boyfriend was probably something you should discuss with your girlfriend beforehand, rather than … afterhand.

“I think you should talk to her,” said Jesse. “You’re better at talking.”

“Aw, come on. She was your girlfriend first – you’ll know better than me how to handle it.”

In the end, they settled it with rock-paper-scissors. Cassidy chose paper, and wrapped his hand around Jesse’s clenched fist, grinning like the cat that got the canary. Jesse kissed the grin off his face.

 


	24. Sooner or Later

Tulip woke up in Jesse’s arms. There were mornings when she woke up and her brain was fuzzy, and she couldn’t remember who she’d gone to bed with. But her body always reminded her before she opened her eyes. Jesse and Cassidy felt different. They had different textures, different angles.

“Morning,” said Jesse, in a voice that was soft and scratchy with sleep. “How’s your headache.”

“All gone.”

She smiled. Going to bed feeling like shit and waking up feeling shiny and new was guaranteed to put her in a good mood. It was like a hangover in reverse.

“You must’ve given it to me, ‘cause my head’s killing me here.”

“You and Cass stay up drinking?”

Jesse paused for a long time before answering, and Tulip finally opened her eyes. Jesse’s brow was furrowed with worry. “Yeah. Listen, there’s something I gotta tell you.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“Um, so last night, I guess me and Cass had a little too much to drink, and… well, we kinda fooled around.”

“Fooled around. What does that mean?”

Jesse’s face was flushed, and Tulip’s pulse was too quick for this early in the morning. “Well, we kissed, and then we more than kissed-”

“Dammit Jesse, be specific.”

“Hands. Just hands.”

“You jerked each other off?”

“Yeah.”

Tulip’s first thought was _damn, that’s hot_. Her second thought was a whole mess of other thoughts, all jumbled together. She thought about how this wasn’t exactly a surprise, and yet it was still a shock. Something that had been a vague idea for so long had somehow become a thing that had actually happened. She thought about what it meant for Jesse, for Cassidy, for her, for all three of them. Were things going to change? How were they going to change? Was Jesse okay? He’d grown up surrounded by so much homophobic crap…

“Are you mad?”

Snapped out of her thoughts, Tulip looked at Jesse and found him looking like he wanted the bed to swallow him up. Time to put the poor guy out of his misery. “I’m a little mad that I didn’t get to see it, but otherwise, no.”

Jesse rolled his face into the pillow and mumbled something that sounded like “Thank God.” Tulip suppressed a giggle. Jesse really had to stop thanking God for things.

“So, you and Cass. Is that a thing, now?”

Jesse pulled his face away from the depths of the pillow with obvious reluctance and said “Honestly, I don’t know what it is. I just know that he turns me on, sometimes. Like, a lot.”

“That’s okay, babe. If you’re both into it, just go for it. You got my blessing.” She adopted a very solemn look and made the sign of the cross. A risky joke, perhaps, but Jesse huffed out a laugh that was probably more relief than amusement.

“You don’t seem all that surprised.”

“That’s ‘cause I ain’t surprised. I guess I knew it was gonna happen sooner or later.”

“Mm.”

“Are you okay?”

It wasn’t a dumb question. He looked troubled, and wanting something didn’t always equate to being okay with wanting it. Not for Jesse, anyway.

“Yeah, I am now. You’re okay with it, and it ain’t like I give a fuck about anyone else’s opinion.”

With that, Tulip decided not to worry.

 


	25. Teach

Nothing changed, really. Cassidy and Jesse went from being best mates who shared a girlfriend, to best mates with benefits who shared a girlfriend. The most pressing question was the exact nature of the benefits.

For a while, they were weirdly shy with each other. Or, as shy as it was possible to be with someone who periodically shoves you up against the fridge and kisses you ferociously. Then Tulip decided to take herself off for an afternoon’s shopping (or possibly shoplifting) and in her absence, things escalated.

Cassidy found Jesse in the kitchen, hunched over his laptop. “God research?” he asked, resting a hand faux-casually on Jesse’s shoulder.

“Yep. You’re gonna like this. Some guy in Ireland says he saw a statue of the Virgin Mary crying tears of Guinness.”

“How did he know it was Guinness?”

“How d’ya think?”

“Ha! Sounds like my my kinda miracle. But as cool as booze-crying statues are, don’t you think you’ve done enough homework for today?” Cassidy leaned down, trailing his hand down Jesse’s chest, and added, “Want to come to me room and play?”

“What exactly do you wanna play?” said Jesse, with a smirk in his voice, while Cassidy nuzzled and nipped at his ear.

“Oh, I dunno. Monopoly? Backgammon? Chinese fucking checkers?”

Jesse twisted in his chair and pulled Cassidy into a fiery kiss.

***

They were both stone-cold sober, and Cassidy told himself not to expect anything more than exploratory making out. He didn’t expect to end up naked, and he certainly didn’t expect Jesse to go down on him. So that came as a very pleasant surprise.

But as awesome as it was, it was also terrible, because Jesse was literally clueless. Cassidy probably would’ve got off regardless, but Jesse didn’t know how to cover his teeth, and Cassidy started to have serious concerns for the safety of little Cassidy.

“Jesse? Jess?”

“Mmph”

“Err … not that I don’t appreciate this, but how ‘bout I show you how it’s done?”

Maybe that was a blow to his ego, but he didn’t seem too unwilling to switch places, and Cassidy had him moaning like a banshee in no time at all.

They spent all afternoon in bed, and Cassidy felt like he was learning as much as Jesse was. The most crucial discovery, which was also the most unexpected, was that Jesse liked being told what to do. It was strange, since Jesse had such a dominant personality outside the bedroom. And perhaps it would change once he was more experienced and confident. But in the meantime, Cassidy was going to enjoy being in charge.

 


	26. Tulip Will Be Tulip

Jesse and Cassidy argued a lot. They always had, ever since they first met, and apparently no amount of stress-relieving activities would change that. Some of what they argued about was small stuff (Cassidy had some pretty outlandish ideas about which Star Wars movies were the best) and some of it was big stuff (the question of faith had always been a contentious one between them) and some of it was personal stuff. Today, it was Tulip.

“So you reckon there’s four of them,” said Cassidy, his voice rising in pitch and volume, “Four bloody Grail spies, and you let her go after them on her own?!”

“I didn’t _let_ her. Nobody _lets_ Tulip do anything.”

“How are you so bloody calm? She could be in serious danger!”

“She can take care of herself.”

“But she shouldn’t have to.”

“She doesn’t have to!” Jesse yelled, losing his temper all at once. “For God’s sake Cass, you really think this is the first time she’s done something like this? And it sure as shit won’t be the last time, either. She does dangerous stuff on her own because she _wants_ to.”

“Why?” Cassidy’s face softened, and he looked so confused that Jesse would’ve felt sorry for him if he weren’t so fucking angry.

“How the hell should I know? Maybe she’s afraid of being dependent on other people. Or maybe she doesn’t wanna put other people in danger. Maybe she’s just an adrenaline junkie.”

Cassidy sank down into the couch, hands clasped together as if he were praying. “Well, what are we supposed to do about it?”

“Nothing. Trust me man, I’ve been here before. I’ve tried keeping her out of danger and it damn near split us up. You just gotta let Tulip be Tulip.”

Cassidy sighed. “It’s bloody terrifying, is all.”

“I know.” Jesse gave Cassidy’s shoulder a brief squeeze. “Get used to it.”

 


	27. Puppies

Save me Tulip I’m surrounded by puppies!!!

Tulip frowned at her phone, wondering if Cassidy had dropped acid recently. She texted back, **Your afraid of puppies?** and added a gif of a cute little Labrador pup being all cute and little.

**Not those kind of puppies. And I’m not afraid, just a wee bit overwhelmed.**

**???**

The next thing Tulip saw was a photo of Cassidy, being nuzzled by someone in a dog mask. Okay. Just another day at the office.

Cassidy was at a bar called The Hope Tap. He was at this bar because it was mentioned a couple times in a binder of really boring information that Tulip had stolen from one of the Grail spies (there had only been three of them, and only one of them knew how to handle a gun, so Cassidy had been panicking about nothing). There was nothing in the binder that seemed all that promising but, like Jesse said, a lead was a lead.

“Jesse, c’mere and look at this nonsense,” said Tulip, waving Jesse over and showing him the picture of Cassidy and the dog-person.

Jesse sniggered. “Hey, if God’s into pet play, chances are he hangs out with other people who are into it.”

Another text popped up, reading **This one guy keeps trying to hump my leg.** There was also another photo – this one featuring at least three dog-people, with masks and spiked collars and fake tails. Cassidy was smiling like an idiot, and Tulip was getting a little pissed off.

“I should’ve gone instead. He’s gonna get distracted.”

“You did your part, getting that binder. And Cassidy knows how to focus when he needs to.”

“They’re all over him, Jesse.”

Jesse gave her a shit-eating grin. “Look at you, getting all possessive.”

Crap, she really was. She wanted to march right down to that bar and crack heads, break glasses, yell at everyone to stay away from her boyfriend. She thought that part of herself was under control, but every so often it made an appearance. Maybe she should work out, or play a really violent video game or something. Anything to get rid of all that destructive energy.

“Hey,” said Jesse, placing a hand on her back, anchoring her, “It’s okay. Cassidy’s gonna behave himself.”

Tulip shook her phone at Jesse, showing him Cassidy’s last picture. “Is this the face of a man who wants to behave himself?”

“Hey, I didn’t say he wouldn’t be tempted. But you know he’d never do anything. The boy knows where his bread’s buttered.” Tulip chewed viciously at her lower lip, and said nothing. “Why does it bother you so much?”

“Because he’s _ours_ , Jesse. Excuse me if I don’t want some sleaze in a dog mask putting their dirty paws all over our Cassidy.”

There it was. A flash of that old, dark fire in Jesse’s eyes. It was a little strange, seeing it burn for someone else, but also very familiar. “Maybe,” he said, stepping towards Tulip and encircling her waist, “we just need to remind him who he belongs to.”

***

Cassidy arrived home late and dishevelled, smelling of liquor and sweat. He was halfway through the door, already chattering about how there weren’t any Dalmatians at the bar, but this puppy called Todd and his master, Angelo, knew a Louisiana seamstress who made dog suits, and she knew just about everyone on the scene, whether they were open about it or not, and-

“You’re in trouble, Cass.”

 Tulip crossed her arms. She and Jesse stood side by side in the hallway with identical, severe expressions. Cassidy looked from one to the other, tipsy and confused.

“Been having fun with all your new, kinky friends, hm?” said Jesse, taking a half-step towards Cassidy.

Jesse was clearly trying not to smile. Trying to play it stern and keep the mischief out of his eyes. It didn’t work, though, and Cassidy caught on quickly. “Oh, only a little fun,” he said. “The kind of fun that gets you hot and bothered. Not the kind of fun where you actually _do_ anything about it.”

“You’re a flirt,” said Tulip, flatly. “Ain’t nothing we can do about that. Except show the whole world that you’re taken.”

With that, she closed the distance between them and latched onto his neck, sucking viciously. Cassidy gave a little whoop of delight, and swore when Jesse attacked the other side of his neck. The three of them tumbled to the floor. Tulip didn’t know who was dragging who down, and didn’t care. All she cared about was marking her territory. She’d been like this when she and Jesse first got together. The novelty of wanting someone, of _having_ someone. She wanted visible proof of that connection.

When she finally released Cassidy, he wiped her spit off his neck and smeared it on her cheek, making her squeal. “Jesus, love,” he said. “Are you sure you’re not secretly a vampire?”

“She always overdoes it,” said Jesse, propping himself up on an elbow and sliding a hand over Cassidy’s stomach, then Tulip’s. “You’re gonna have one nice hickey, and one nasty one.

No doubt about that. Jesse was quite the expert at hickeys. His would look like a sweet little smear of lipstick against Cassidy’s pale skin. Tulip’s would be a big, ugly bruise.

“So… am I still in trouble?” Cassidy asked, and the hopeful look on his face was downright adorable.

Tulip and Jesse wordlessly agreed that he was, and then wordlessly showed him just how much trouble he was in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe how much I agonised over Tulip mixing up "Your" and "You're" in a text. It drives me mad when people do that but I figured Tulip, as smart as she is, probably had a short and patchy education. So I had to put aside the Grammar Nazi tendencies for the sake of realism.


	28. Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To whom it may concern: This chapter contains references to childhood physical abuse. Nothing too graphic.

Truth be told, Cassidy had been in much worse trouble before. The kind of trouble with whips and chains and some really rather hard-core stuff. Tulip and Jesse hadn’t done much more than be beautifully, blissfully rough with him. But God, he’d take that any day of the week. The three of them, together, were just bloody magic.

Cassidy stretched, and let Tulip nestle her sweat-damp body into the crook of his arm. They had moved to his bedroom when Jesse had had the bright idea of tying him to the headboard. Jesse was full of bright ideas, Cassidy thought fondly, looking at the man in question. He was lying on his stomach, probably just about to fall asleep. That was another thing Cassidy had recently discovered about Jesse – he could go all night, but once he was done, he was _done._

He looked at the scars on Jesse’s back, suddenly remembering when he had first seen them. That time in the kitchen, waiting for their blood-soaked clothes to wash. He’d been excited, of course, seeing Jesse practically naked for the first time. But he’d been more excited about having a friend he could day-drink in his underwear with. That kind of thing doesn’t come along every day, so he’d been careful. Focusing on the tattoos instead of the scars. No difficult questions. No awkward silences. No touching.

Now that the no touching rule had been thoroughly stomped on, he reached out tentatively and touched one of the scars. Just a gentle brush of fingertips – the scar tissue was surprisingly smooth – but Jesse snapped back to wakefulness at the contact. He turned his head sideways, looking at Cassidy with one of those difficult-to-read faces.

“Errr … Do we not touch those, then?” said Cassidy, unsure of whether he was talking to Jesse or Tulip or both.

“S’Alright,” said Jesse. “You just woke me up, is all.”

“Cass, I’m starting to think you got some kinda scar fetish,” said Tulip sleepily, hooking a leg over him.

“Only for yours, love.”

Cassidy grabbed Tulip’s thigh, running a thumb over her sexy little scar. Given the number of fights she’d been in, it was a wonder she only had the one. She wasn’t shy about it. In fact, she loved to brag about how she’d paid back the guy who gave it to her with a scar that was twice as big, and on his face. Vicious wee vixen, she was.

As distracting as Tulip’s naked thigh was, Cassidy found his eyes drifting back to Jesse’s scars. He must have been frowning, because Jesse pushed himself up and onto his side, facing Cassidy and blocking the scars from his view.

“They’re over twenty years old, Cass,” he said. “It’s ancient history.”

“Twenty years doesn’t seem all that long to me.”

It was no secret that Jesse’s da had beaten him. Tulip had witnessed it on more than one occasion. She’d told him about it once, late at night, cocooned in the safety of darkness and Cassidy’s arms. She’d been nothing but a tiny, twig-skinny child, and she could do absolutely nothing as her best friend got whipped with a belt, over and over. Not in anger, but in the cold, unwavering belief that this was how you raised a boy like Jesse. One who got into fights and tried cigarettes and said dirty words and generally needed the evil beaten out of him. Maybe Cassidy shouldn’t have been shocked. He’s had a whipping or two himself, as a child – everyone did, back then. But it had never been hard enough to scar, or bruise, and he’d always been left feeling sore and sorry for himself. Not helpless, or afraid, or worthless.

Cassidy was really a daft old sod for feeling so protective of these two, who had just tied him up and shown him absolutely no mercy for the past hour. But twenty years just didn’t seem all that long. He gathered both of them up in his arms and kissed each of them on the forehead, holding them as close as he possibly could.


	29. Boys' Night In

When Jesse had asked what Tulip was going to get up to with Amy, Tulip had said, “Oh, y’know, doing facials and watching romantic comedies and reading Cosmo. Girl stuff.” Jesse had snickered and Cassidy looked confused, so Jesse had to explain to him that it was a running joke. Whenever Tulip and Amy got together, there was a good chance they would end up at the gun range.

Yep, Tulip had always been more into guy stuff than girl stuff. The only guy thing she wasn’t into was sports, so Jesse and Cassidy were making the most of her absence and watching football.

Damn, football was boring. It wasn’t even half time before Jesse nudged Cassidy (who was resting his head on Jesse’s shoulder, eyes half-closed) and said, “Cass, it’s late and I really don’t give a fuck who wins. I’m gonna go to bed.”

Cassidy freed Jesse’s shoulder and yawned hugely. Jesse was in the living room doorway when he found himself turning around and asking, “You coming with me?”

“I dunno Padre, I’m pretty knackered.”

“Get your head out the gutter, Cass, I just meant to sleep.”

“Oh.”

There was an awkward silence. By now, the two of them had gone to bed together plenty of times, but always with the intention of fun and games. This was new. And yeah, maybe it was a dumb thing to get shy about, considering all the intimate stuff they’d already done. But Jesse didn’t know what the rules were, with the whole “friends with benefits” thing.

“You don’t have to, obviously,” said Jesse, trying to sound casual. “Only if you want some company.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice. I’m probably gonna snore, though.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

***

Once they were in bed and the lights were out, the lingering awkwardness disappeared. They rolled towards each other, natural as breathing, and somehow ended up in a spoon position. Jesse wasn’t used to being the little spoon, but he had to admit it felt good to have Cassidy’s tall frame curled around him like that.

After a few minutes of quiet, Cassidy whispered, “Jess, you asleep yet?”

“Yep. Fast asleep and dreaming.”

“What are you dreaming of?”

“Mmmmm… Pecan pie.” Cassidy snorted in amusement. “What’s on your mind, Cass?”

“Nothing, it’s just … Do you ever wonder about DeBlanc and Fiore?”

“What’s there to wonder about? They’re dead.”

“But that can’t be the end, can it? Not for angels. I just sometimes wonder if they’re okay, is all, and if they’re together.”

Jesse unconsciously pulled Cassidy’s arm a little closer to his chest. “Were they together when they were alive? _Together_ together, I mean?”

“Grey area. They weren’t shagging or anything, they were just best friends who shared a bedroom. And probably a bed. I mean, they had twin beds in their motel room but one of them was full of guns so I can’t imagine it got much use.”

“Huh. That’s…” Jesse toyed with the word _weird_ , but rejected it in favor of “kinda sweet.”

“Y’know what? As I get older there are less and less things that seem strange to me. It’s all just people trying to be happy, isn’t it?”

“Damn, Cass, you’re like the only person on Earth who gets less narrow-minded as you get older.”  

As tired as Jesse was, his brain wouldn’t let him fall asleep. Especially now that Cassidy had got him thinking about DeBlanc and Fiore. It suddenly seemed very important that wherever dead angels went to, it was all the same place.

There were other things that seemed suddenly urgent, too. If Jesse died tomorrow (and, hey, it could happen – Jesse wasn’t exactly a safety-conscious person) would Cassidy even know how he felt about him?

The words didn’t come easy. Not because he didn’t know what to say, but because he was too much of a fucking cissy to say it. Thank God it was dark, and Jesse was facing away from Cassidy. These things were always easier without eye contact.

“Cass, you know I love you, right? I know it’s not the same as me and Tulip, or you and Tulip, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less… important, or deep, or whatever. You mean the world to me, man. I’d take a fucking bullet for you.”

“Well, that’d be a daft thing to do, all things considered.”

“It’s a figure of speech, dumbass.”

Cassidy gave a convulsive little laugh, and pressed himself closer against Jesse’s back. “I love you too, Jesse Custer.”

He leaned forward and kissed Jesse on the jaw, just beneath his ear.

“So much.”

Another kiss. His voice was real quiet, but clear.

“Always will.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is what's referred to as "tooth-rotting fluff".
> 
> I won't be updating next week, because I'm working on a Misfits fic that I really want to finish and post. If you like Misfits you should totally read it! And if you've never seen Misfits you should totally watch it - Joseph Gilgun and Ruth Negga are both in it. :)


	30. Girls' Night Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm borrowing Amy from the comics. I wish she'd make an appearance in the show, because it'd be nice for Tulip to have a female friend who doesn't get blown up or turn out to be a Grail spy/superbitch.

Tulip probably would’ve considered high school a complete waste of time if she hadn’t met Amy. They’d become friends in freshman year, and it was the weirdest thing that bonded them.

See, it was common knowledge that Tulip’s mom was a whore. Consequently, the boys seemed to think that Tulip was pretty much open for business. Hell no. Until Jesse reappeared, the idea of doing any of _that_ grossed her out. Just the thought of all those faceless, witless idiots putting their sweaty hands on her was enough to turn her stomach. In the process of correcting their assumptions, she earnt herself the reputation of a frigid bitch with a mean right hook.

Amy was in the opposite situation. Her family had money, and manners, and religion. At the age of ten, her mom had put her in a white dress and her dad had dragged her to a chastity ball where she had obediently pledged to remain a virgin until marriage. Then puberty hit, and she got horny. Like, really horny. She lost her virginity just before turning fifteen, and then simply fucked anyone she wanted to fuck. Obviously, she got herself the reputation of a slut with no standards. This reputation was mostly spread around by the boys she said no to.

One lunchtime, Tulip and Amy had ended up laughing under the bleachers at the dumbass rumours being spread about them, and from then on, they had each other’s backs.

***

“Man, I can’t believe how long it’s been,” said Amy, settling herself into the booth and sipping her margarita. They had already covered the essentials – mostly exclamations of shock and delight at Tulip’s shorter hair and Amy’s truly phenomenal minidress – and were ready to catch up.

“Too damn long. Honestly, I dunno where to start.”

Yep, that was the truth. Tulip hadn’t seen Amy since the whole God-hunt began, and was reluctant to drag her into it. She was a tough chick, but Tulip still felt protective towards her, and if she knew what was going on she would inevitably want to help. It sucked, though, to keep such a big secret from her.

“Let’s start with Jesse,” said Amy, grinning. “I’m so fucking glad you two got back together.”

“Me too,” said Tulip, hoping her face didn’t give anything away. Shit, how was she supposed to explain the situation? What if Amy didn’t understand? What if she thought Tulip was, like, _cheating_ on Jesse? Maybe she shouldn’t say anything. “So, uh, how ‘bout you? You seeing anyone?”

“Yeah. Um. Don’t judge me, but I’m dating another writer.”

“What? What ever happened to _never again_?”

“Okay, I know I’m breaking my own rules here, but I feel like it’s different this time. I mean, that douchey guy wrote horror, and this girl writes historical fiction, so, y’know, different genres.”

Hold on. Tulip replayed Amy’s words in her mind, checking them. Yep, she had definitely said “this girl”.

“Tulip? Honey, you’ve gone quiet. Are you freaking out?”

“No, I’m just … surprised, I guess. You’re dating a woman?”

“Yep.”

“Is she your first girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

“Is she hot?”

“Gorgeous.”

Tulip’s smile got bigger and bigger, until it seemed to spread through her whole body and she felt like bouncing up and down in her seat as Amy told her how she and Lucinda had met. If Amy had the balls to be honest with Tulip about this, Tulip could sure as hell be honest about her own relationship.

A quiet voice at the back of her brain told her it wasn’t the same. She ignored it. She waited for the right moment, and when the right moment didn’t come along, she just blurted it all out. It felt so fucking good to tell someone. And it felt awesome for Amy, her oldest friend if you didn’t count Jesse, to know about Cassidy. It felt momentarily less awesome when Amy got this confused look on her face, but then she said “Oh, so you’re, like, polyamorous?” and everything clicked into place.

Amy wanted all the gory details, of course. Tulip didn’t mind, since she wanted all the gory details about Lucinda. They talked for a long time, until Amy shook her head in bafflement and said “This is crazy, Tulip. I mean, Jesse freakin’ Custer with another man. What’s a girl to do with that mental image?”

“Oh, I think you know exactly what to do with it.”

“And Magnet Knees O’Hare getting it on with two guys!”

Tulip leaned over the table and punched Amy playfully in the shoulder. Anyone else using that old nickname would’ve got a much more serious punch, but Amy always got a pass.

“What about you, huh? No guys at all and you actually look happy.”

A sweet, melty kind of look passed over Amy’s face. “I am happy.”

“I’m glad.”

“And you’re good too, right?”

“Real good.”

They raised their glasses, and drank.

 


	31. Dust

_If we were vampires and death was a joke_

_We’d go out on the sidewalk and smoke_

_And laugh at all the lovers and their plans_

_I wouldn’t feel the need to hold your hand_

_-“If We Were Vampires” by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit_

 

It was a sunny morning, but Cassidy didn’t notice. The curtains were shut tight against any dangerous chinks of sunshine, and he and Tulip were making out lazily in bed while Jesse showered. The peace of the morning was only interrupted by sudden, loud swearing coming from the bathroom.

“You all right, Padre?” Cassidy asked, as Jesse emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, looking rather devilishly handsome.

“Yeah.”

“What’s with the naughty words?”

“S’nothing. I just found a grey hair, is all.”

“Aw, that’s okay babe.” Tulip reassured, clambering to the edge of the bed and kneeling up to run her fingers through Jesse’s hair. “You’re gonna be a silver fox.”

Jesse looked pained, and said “It ain’t up there, Tulip.”

Cassidy cackled and scrambled towards Jesse, insisting on having a look. Jesse didn’t want anyone having a look, and a brief struggle commenced between the three of them, focused on whether or not Jesse’s towel should remain in place. Since it was two against one, the towel inevitably ended up on the floor and Cassidy and Tulip got a look at Jesse’s grey hair, though they both got their arses smacked in the process.

“No need to be shy about it,” said Cassidy, pulling a slightly damp and stark-bollock-naked Jesse Custer onto the bed. “They say a little grey makes a man look distinguished.”

“Fuck you,” said Jesse, and kissed him.

Cassidy wondered, momentarily, if fucking was on the cards. Jesse was already naked, and at least mildly interested, judging by the state of things downstairs. And Tulip looked so sexy, sat amongst the wrinkled sheets, wearing a lovely pair of red knickers and nothing else. But then again, Jesse had only just showered, and the three of them had really worn each other out last night.

“It’s all right for you, Cass,” said Tulip. “You don’t have to worry about grey hair and wrinkles and all that shit. We’re gonna get old and saggy and you won’t wanna have sex with us anymore.”

Tulip pouted, and Cassidy made a dismissive noise. “Please, you two are gonna be gorgeous until you’re, like, eighty. You’ll lose your sex drive long before your looks, and I’ll still be a horny wee rabbit.”

Jesse, who had a distressing talent for turning playful conversations serious, said “Things are gonna change, aren’t they? I mean, we’re gonna age and eventually we’re gonna… y’know. And you’re not. That ain’t the kinda thing you can just ignore.”

A solid mass of fear congealed in Cassidy’s stomach. The feeling only got worse when Jesse got off the bed and started to get dressed. He kept his back turned to Cassidy, but there was visible tension in his shoulders. Turning to look at Tulip, he caught her frowning and fiddling with the sheets. Jesus, how had they gone from giggling over a grey pubic hair to freaking out about human mortality so quickly?

He thought about watching people die, and the thought felt like a punch to the gut. Then he thought about leaving the two of them – just slipping away quietly in the night – and that thought felt more like a knife in the heart. So, in the end, it was an easy decision.

“Look,” said Cassidy, “I’m not saying it’ll be easy, later on. But you eejits need to know that I’m not going anywhere. I’m gonna love you two until you’re dust.”

Neither of them said anything, at first. Tulip embraced him, much more gently than usual. Then Jesse joined them on the bed and wrapped his arms around both of them, kissing faces and necks and naked shoulders. “’Til the end of the world, right?” he murmured, looking at Tulip and then, pointedly, at Cassidy.

“’Til the end of the world,” said Tulip.

Despite his long life, Cassidy didn’t have many achievements to his name. He’d never been an ambitious man, and hadn’t done anything that he was particularly proud of. But managing to keep his voice from cracking when he said those six words for the first time – yeah. That felt like something that deserved a medal.

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I feel like this fic is pretty much done. But since this chapter is a little bittersweet with the whole mortality thing, I'm going to write one or two more happy, fluffy chapters as a palette cleanser. :)


	32. Six Smutty Drabbles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first attempt at writing drabbles. I always thought I was good at writing concisely, but wow, 100 words is not many words at all!

Cassidy talked a lot in bed. At first, he asked a lot of questions, which was sweet but also a little annoying, especially since Tulip was so used to Jesse’s familiarity with her body. As Cassidy got more confident, the talk got more varied. Silly stuff that made her giggle. Gaelic endearments when he was being romantic. Dirty talk so hot that she worried she might spontaneously combust. She loved it, though sometimes it confused her. For example, it turned out that “fanny” was used by Irish people to refer to a different body part. That caused a brief misunderstanding.

***

Goddamn, was he ever going to stop snoring? Jesse was about to try turning Cassidy on his side again, when Tulip grabbed his arm. She brought his hand up to her mouth and kissed it. Then, just in case he hadn’t got the hint, she pressed it firmly against her tit. “Really?” Jesse whispered incredulously. Tulip nodded, smiling.

Cassidy hadn’t been kidding when he said he could sleep through anything. He woke up about a minute after they finished, snuggled up against Jesse and told him he’d dreamt that a purple llama was jumping up and down on the bed.

***

So, all the stuff Cassidy did with Jesse was great. But they still hadn’t done _that_ , and Cassidy was starting to want it badly. He found himself uncharacteristically tongue-tied, not knowing which words to use or whether Jesse would be up for it. In the end, it only took two words, and Jesse was very much up for it.

It had been a long time. Cassidy was tight as a virgin and just as nervous, but Jesse was slow and careful and good with his fingers. And if it felt less like playtime and more like lovemaking, that was okay.

***

Jesse still had his boundaries. But these days, he was pretty sure they were _his_ boundaries rather than ones that other people had imposed upon him. With Cassidy, he made it clear that he couldn’t take more than a finger up the ass and had no desire to develop this particular skill. It might have been an awkward conversation, if he hadn’t already had it with Tulip.

“Wait, are you saying Tulip wanted to…” Cassidy trailed off.

“Mm-hm. Caught her looking at strap-ons on the internet. She got all embarrassed.”

Cassidy looked like all his Christmases had come at once.

***

Cassidy stretched out as much as he could in the back seat of Tulip’s car, which wasn’t much. Tulip settled herself more comfortably on top of him, loose-limbed and still out of breath.

“Have you and Jesse ever done it in the car?” Cassidy asked.

“Mm-hm. Jesse’s real good in cramped spaces.”

“Is he? Maybe we should-”

“No. No way in hell are we having a threesome in this car. There’s no room.”

“What if you lean over the front seat there, and I could-”

“It ain’t possible, Cass.”

“Come on, hear me out. Look, I’ll draw you a diagram.”

***

Being in a relationship with two people involved a hell of a lot of talking. Feelings, boundaries, practicalities – it all had to be discussed, which didn’t come natural to Jesse. So he loved it when Tulip and Cassidy just _knew_ , without any need for words.

That time when it rained all night and Jesse was in one of his weird, dark moods. Cassidy and Tulip had got out of bed and found him staring out the window, and Cassidy pushed him – very gently – to his knees. It turned out that on his knees was exactly where he needed to be.


	33. Halloween

Tulip looked at herself in the mirror, casting a critical eye over the Halloween costume. When she’d bought it online it had looked pretty revealing, but the model had much bigger tits than her and had clearly been wearing a push-up bra. On Tulip, it looked subtly sexy, with a slit up the side that showed a teasing glimpse of thigh, and a low neckline that showed off her collarbones (Tulip honestly had no idea collarbones were sexy until she met Cassidy, who swooned over them like a Victorian gentleman). She put on the hat and a pair of black boots, and went into the kitchen.

Jesse and Cassidy both gaped at her like a pair of guppies. Cassidy was sufficiently distracted from the chips he was pouring into a bowl that they spilled all over the counter-top. “Damn,” breathed Jesse. “You make one sexy witch, Tulip.”

“Thanks,” Tulip beamed. “You guys look ridiculous.”

Harsh, but fair. Jesse was dressed as Zorro – probably because he was allergic to color. His costume had big, billowy sleeves and a cheap, plastic sabre attached to the belt. Cassidy was dressed as a vampire. An old-school, Dracula kind of vampire with a cape and a frilly shirt and an unnecessary layer of white face paint.

The party had been Cassidy’s idea. He pointed out that they had been living in the new apartment for months without encountering any problems from The Grail – no home invasions, no pervy little cameras behind the couch – and still hadn’t got to know any of the neighbors. Tulip and Jesse were reluctant at first, but came around to the idea when Cassidy reassured them that it needn’t be anything fancy. Just booze and snacks and music. A chance to mingle and chat.

Tulip was just wondering whether they had enough beer when the doorbell rang. She opened the door to reveal a female pirate, a chubby, bearded Batman and two ghosts. That didn’t surprise her, except that the ghosts were unexpectedly small. Hold on … were people bringing their kids?

An hour later, there were more kids than adults at the party and Tulip had to adjust her dress whenever she sat down because a twelve-year-old James Bond kept staring at her thighs. They still had plenty of beer left but were running dangerously low on candy, and Amanda-from-apartment-3B was pissing Tulip off with her tedious chit-chat and obnoxiously huge baby bump. The fact that pregnant bellies could still upset her made her feel shitty.

Tulip told Amanda she was going to get a drink and left her on the couch without offering her anything (though she obviously couldn’t drink anyway, so it didn’t matter). When Tulip opened the kitchen door, she was greeted with a loud smashing noise.

The cookie jar. A little blonde girl, dressed as a cat, had been reaching for it and had dislodged it from the shelf. The girl stared at the scattered cookies and sharp-edged chunks of china on the kitchen floor and cussed. Then she turned her round, pink face toward Tulip and said “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry! Please don’t tell my mom. And please don’t tell her I said the c-word.”

Despite her annoyance, Tulip felt the corner of her mouth twitching in amusement. “Crap isn’t the c-word.”

“Really? What is?”

“You don’t need to know that. What you do need to know is how to fix the stuff you break. Stay there while I pick up the sharp bits, then I’ll show you how to glue it back together.”

She turned out to be a nice enough kid. Her name was Lila, and her mom had put her on a diet (though she didn’t call it a diet, she called it a “healthy eating program”) which was why she hadn’t been able to resist the lure of the cookie jar. She liked dogs and horses and spiders, and her favorite color was purple.

Lila and Tulip were halfway through fixing the cookie jar when Jesse and Cassidy ushered two young boys – both dressed as Harry Potter – into the kitchen. Their faces were streaked with tears. One was carrying two sad-looking pieces of a broken toy wand, and the other one had a bloody nose. Jesse grabbed a couple of paper towels and helped the bloody-nosed boy clean himself up, while Cassidy spoke gently to the other boy, trying to stop him crying. “Come on now, your mam said you two were best mates. No sense in ruining that over a little fight, eh? I think you should both say sorry, and then we’ll see if Tulip can fix your wand.”

“Are those two guys your roommates?” asked Lila.

“Who, the Harry Potters? Or Zorro and Dracula?”

“Zorro and Dracula.”

She ought to just say yes. Any of this could get back to Lila’s mom, who seemed kind of uptight.

“They’re my boyfriends,” she said, and couldn’t bring herself to regret saying it.

***

After everyone had left, the three of them crashed out on the couch and drank the last, leftover beers. Tulip leaned against Jesse, with her legs draped over Cassidy, whose hand was wandering up the slit in the side of her dress. Tulip was getting on board with that idea surprisingly fast. Maybe right there, on the couch. Before she could get things started properly, though, Jesse interrupted her thoughts.

“Y’know, between the three of us, we’re pretty good with kids.”

Cassidy’s hand stilled instantly, and Tulip shot Jesse a harsh, questioning look. “What? I’m just saying.”

That was bullshit. Jesse never just said anything. He thought about things, carefully and at length and from every possible angle. The fact that Jesse was thinking about it gave her a strange little thrill that was equal parts fear and happiness.

But she could think about that tomorrow – right now, she had to concentrate on getting her boyfriends out of their ridiculous costumes. Maybe she’d keep hers on though. The boots, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is officially the last chapter. Thanks for reading, and big hugs to anyone who left kudos or comments - your enthusiasm kept me writing!
> 
> Also, someone please write a fic with these three being parents! I suspect it would be a hilarious disaster.


End file.
